What Internet Marketers Can Learn From a Teenage Boy Asking a Girl to Prom

Everyone remembers their high school prom … building up enough courage to ask the girl of your dreams … being too shy to ask who you really wanted to go with, and settling for second best … Tuxedos, limos, corsages (why do I need a corsage?), dancing, hanging with friends, the after party, the late night truth or … well you know what I am talking about.

Surprisingly enough, there is a lot an internet marketer can learn from a 17 year old kid asking a girl to prom.

1. Take Action

The guy who is first to act, first to ask the girl, is usually the one who gets to go with her … well most of the time. (There are exceptions to every rule) If you don’t do it, someone else will. There has to come a time when you stop just thinking about it, and actually do it. Take Action.

This relates perfectly with internet marketing. We’ve all had that million dollar idea -The perfect website that will make us rich. Well the truth of the matter is – most of us will never act on that idea. We will never actually get enough courage to build that website, or create that product, or quit our jobs and become a fulltime web entrepreneur. We will just continue along with our comfortable, secure day jobs and keep coming back here everyday, to look at the picture of Shoe and his 132K Adsense check, wondering how he did it and if you’ll ever get there.

This reminds me of myself two years ago when I first discovered affiliate marketing. I was baffled, I was intrigued, I was hooked …. Was it really as easy as they made it sound? I was one of the first few readers to discover a small little blog about how to make money online called, JohnChow.com. Back then John wasn’t the cyber celebrity he is today and I couldn’t stop reading. I would come back every day, sometime two or three times a day to catch his latest post. I wanted to know how it all worked and how I could do it too. Well after a year of reading every blog, forum, and website out there about how to make money online, I felt I knew how it all worked, but I was still in the exact same place I was a year earlier …. Still a poor college student and still no experience in affiliate marketing.

Stop thinking and start doing…. Take Action.

2. Be Creative

I swear to you this is a true story. Back when I was in high school and thinking about going to prom, the new thing was to ask your date in a creative way. No longer was it acceptable to give them a flower with a note or just call them and ask them. Nope. You had to be creative and unique. A friend of mine told this girl he wanted to ask, to follow some clues he had left her, which eventually led her to a small airport near our high school. She had no idea what was going on. Well, he took her up in an open cockpit biplane (he obviously wasn’t flying the plane) and took her on a ride up along the San Diego coast line. As they passed over a specific beach, he pointed down to the sand where another friend and I had spent the last hour writing in GIANT letters the word: “PROM?”

She obviously said yes, and they ended up going together. Moral of the story: Be Creative.

In the world of internet marketing if you want to succeed you have to stand out from the crowd. You have to be creative. There are thousands of blogs and websites out there which talk about how to make money online. Don’t just write about that because you think it will be easy. No one is going to listen to you anyway unless you have really made it big. Choose something you really know and go after it. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Find a way to stand out from the crowd and you will succeed.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail

It can be very intimidating to go up to some girl you have had a crush on all year and ask her to prom. Will she say “Yes”, what if she says “No”? If you don’t ask you will never find out. Put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to fail. You will eventually get the girl.

The same goes for online marketing. A little personal example again – So a year had past and I felt I knew everything there is to know about internet marketing (yeah right). So I spent 2 months and $1,500 developing this idea I had for a website. This was going to be revolutionary! It was going to change people’s lives and it was going make me rich!! (Well maybe not change peoples lives, but it definitely was going to make me rich.) The site was called UltimateGamblingOnline.com. It is no longer up so you don’t need to bother checking it out. This was back in the height of the poker craze. I loved poker and played online in between college classes. This site would offer people incentives (cash, poker chips, and poker tables) to sign up and deposit money at certain poker websites using my affiliate links. I really thought it was going to be an instant hit, and I thought it would make me lots of money. Well as it turned out, people really didn’t trust it, and were hesitant to sign up. Also, I had a hard time getting traffic to the site. I really didn’t know much about SEO at the time. It was a complete and total failure. However even though the site tanked, I did take away some valuable lessons – one of them being, don’t be afraid to fail.

So next time you get that “Million Dollar Idea” or are struggling to separate your website from the pack, think back to your high school prom and ask yourself, “How did I get the girl?”

those are some good tips. I have to call BS on the plane thing though. Unless that kid is freaking rich I don’t see him doing that. I’m sure the girl woulda said yes if all he did was ask her to prom the old fashioned way.

I especially relate to the “fear of failure” point. As someone that’s fairly new to blogging I sometimes get caught up in “what if” type thinking. That fear can sometimes deter me from taking chances. Instead, I need to “flip the script” more and ask “why not?”.

Ugh, brutal flashbacks of highshcool years that I wish I could forget. I was to busy (read scared) to concern myself with the prom. What sucks is the amount of time I wasted doing stuff, instead of paying attention in math class. Sure would be useful today. Good post to air out the closet of junk and get rid of it. It’s that junk that prevents us from acting today sometimes.

Great post and story! You’re are a wise man Mr. Shoe!
I like that. I’ve been always asking myself “if this” or “if that” and sometimes I found that I’ve lost something important to say or do in my life.
But now You make me believe in myself more.
Thanks!

love what you say about faliure shoe, You have to get out their and expose yourself to the elements. When I started my blog a friend of mine just knocked me for it. I’m a wedding photographer and most photogs will just put their photos on their and tell who cool the couple was. I thought to myself, “You know, what photographers don’t do that they shoud do is let people know what they are about. build a connection before they call you.” So my website now is my blog and i right about having great relationships. I mean, i would like to be the wedding photographer that can say that the divorce rate of the couple i photograph is nearly 0. Thanks for the reminder shoe!!!!

Your blog is very interesting & you make it for people who have little knowledge about MLM very interesting.

I noticed that we are very much into the same interests so I wanted to drop by and say hello. My name is Reginald & I am into this kind of business too. I also work for the Federal Govt but I look forward to retiring really soon.

The economy is really bad these days but unbeknownst to many, they can have financial stability thru MLM. Sadly, a lot of people think most MLMs are scams. If only they they’d open their eyes & try to understand MLM & its concepts better…I’m sure they’ll be on their way to financial freedom.